Poland’s honeymoon with Ukraine is over The euphoric support of 2022 is a distant memory

On Monday, after months of negotiations and a sizeable subsidy from the Polish government for the agricultural sector, farmers finally suspended their blockade of the border. But the damage has already been done. A new survey released in late April showed that positive views of Poland among Ukrainians had fallen from a high of 94% in early 2023 to only 58% last month. Poles’ views of Ukrainian refugees have also grown somewhat more negative — although more recent figures are difficult to come by, in 2023, support among Poles for accepting Ukrainian refugees fell by 10% overall to 73%, and among some demographics such as young Polish women, to a mere 47%. And according to one 2023 survey, the percentage of Poles who wished to generally support Ukraine in its war effort dropped from 83% in early 2022 to 65% in 2023.

This growing fatigue was entirely predictable. Though few realised it at the time, that point in early 2022, when everyday Poles across the country quite literally opened their homes to families fleeing the invasion, was probably a once-in-a-lifetime moment of cross-border solidarity. For a brief period, the difficult minutiae of politics and history that had previously defined relations between Poland and Ukraine gave way to a national embrace, not just between two states, but between two peoples. Over two years since the start of the Russian invasion, and much to Vladimir Putin’s chagrin, Poland and Ukraine have remained allies. But the unbridled love affair between them and their people has ended, and the realism that had characterised their relations before 2022 has made a decisive return.

This is most clearly reflected in the two-pronged approach of Donald Tusk’s government, which seeks to maintain close ties with Ukraine on the security front while pursuing a more assertive, protectionist policy in the trade and agricultural spheres. Last week, in a policy speech to Parliament, Tusk’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski, reiterated Poland’s interest in defending Ukraine from Russia. But he consciously framed this commitment in terms that differed markedly from the overtures of brotherhood President Duda had used during the first year of Russia’s invasion. “It is in Poland’s obvious interest to keep the aggressor away from our borders, which is why sovereign Ukraine must win this war,” Sikorski said. “Thanks to the sacrifice of Ukrainians, we can move the borders of the free world hundreds of kilometres to the east.”

Though the support remains, self-preservation has now edged out altruistic solidarity. And the latest drama playing out  demonstrates this new reality perfectly: last week, Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz stated that Poland is ready to help return fighting-age Ukrainian men return to their home country for potential military conscription. Ukraine announced the same day that it would stop issuing passports to men of conscription age living outside of their territory, prompting a surge of anger among Ukrainians at their consulates in Poland.

This anger may soon come to be levelled at the Polish state itself since politicians are reviewing new rules this week that may cut social benefits for Ukrainians who cannot produce valid passports. Not only that, but Kosiniak-Kamysz has also refused to rule out deporting the men back to Ukraine at Kyiv’s request — a move which would sour relations even further. Helping Ukraine beef up its military manpower along the frontlines is clearly in Poland’s national interest — but gone are the days when Poland would agree to host any and all Ukrainians, no questions asked. If keeping the Russian enemy at arm’s length now requires some coercion of refugees, Poland appears ready to play ball.

In the long relationship between Poland and Ukraine, this is nothing new. In 1919, the founding father of the modern Polish state, Józef Piłsudski, coined an adage: “Without an independent Ukraine, there cannot be an independent Poland.” This has since remained the cornerstone of Polish policy toward Ukraine — but this didn’t always mean Poland was friendly toward Ukrainians if it didn’t suit its interests. In 1920, for instance, Piłsudski signed an alliance with Ukrainian independence leader Symon Petliura, and helped him to militarily re-establish control over Kyiv from Russian Bolshevik forces for a brief period. But just a few years before, during the last days of the First World War, Polish forces had waged a bitter ethnic war in western Ukraine, with Piłsudski himself capturing lands Ukrainians claimed as their own.

Ukraine’s leaders have approached the relationship in an equally transactional manner when it suited them, with exceptionally bloody consequences. During the Second World War, when an opportunity arose for the radical Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to finally carve out a Ukrainian state on Polish territory, they did so with the utmost brutality. Between 1943 and 1945, the UPA carried out massacres of up to 100,000 Poles in today’s western Ukraine, what is known in Poland as the Volhynia Slaughter. Partially in response, the post-war Polish government carried out the resettlement programme known as Operation Vistula in 1947, deporting almost 150,000 Ukrainians from Poland’s south-east to new territories in the west.

At the conclusion of the Cold War, when both countries regained full independence from Soviet domination, Poland and Ukraine renounced all territorial claims against each other, and committed to living alongside each other as “equal and close peoples”. Comparatively cordial relations have existed between them ever since — during Russia’s shadow war in the Donbas after 2014, Poland supported Ukraine diplomatically, denouncing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But the legacy of their shared history continued to loom, and, since 2015, disagreements over the exhumations of Polish victims of these wartime massacres and Ukraine’s memorialisation of radical groups like UPA threatened to reopen old wounds.

Since 2022, when the hard reality of Russian aggression united Poles and Ukrainians once again, Moscow has tried to exploit this to pit Poland and Ukraine against each other, but without much success. Instead, it is economic issues that have threatened to drive a wedge between the two countries — and the grain dispute is just the start. Ukraine and Poland’s economies are joined at the hip, and Ukrainian immigrants have formed a crucial part of Poland’s labour market for years. In this sense, both countries are co-dependent, and the influx of Ukrainians since 2022 has ultimately been beneficial for Poland, despite fears among Poles about the strain Ukrainian refugees are having on their social service systems.

However, trade issues, of which grain and food imports are only a small part, may become a much bigger problem. Although Poland has so far been supportive of Ukraine’s entry into the EU, the lower cost of Ukrainian agricultural and consumer goods means that their incorporation into the single market could have a dramatic impact on Poland’s economy. In addition, Ukraine, rather than Poland and other current eastern EU states, would become the primary recipient of funds from Brussels as the bloc’s poorest member, stymying Poland’s growth trajectory. Paradoxically, overcoming these very contemporary material problems may be more difficult for the two countries than coming to terms with the ghosts of their past.

But these material problems are a consequence of the same reality: geopolitical proximity and the cold logic of survival. These two forces have brought Poles and Ukrainians together in anger and in friendship through the centuries, the latter usually whenever the resurgent Russian bear starts breathing down both of their necks. As long as that threat remains, Poland and Ukraine will have many reasons to co-operate. As for any long-time neighbours in Europe, the past is full of messy indignities. And even though the most idyllic honeymoon must eventually come to an end, there is no reason why an unvarnished, imperfect, yet honest and fruitful marriage can’t replace it.

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Michal Kranz is a freelance journalist reporting on politics and society in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the United States.

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